Dream Walker
by RiP-Vii
Summary: Part III of my seven-part series, The Legend. A strange temptress enters D's care. Vianne, who can no longer see except in dreams, experiences horrifying nightmares that threaten to destroy her sanity. Rated for language, sexual violence
1. Siera

The Legend III

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_#Hiya! I'm back with the third story in The Legend. It's been a really, really, long time. Meh. Busy. Exams coming up, yada yada. Anyway. What a way to open my new story with a horrible sadistic chapter O and there's more where this came from. Warning to anyone out there who likes my heroine Vianne...she gets bashed. Hard. For this entire story. Trust me, it breaks my heart to see my lovely OC being tortured (by me, indirectly. i'm so ironic). But oh well. Happy heroines are too unrealistic for cynical me. Well she won't die yet, so grieve not! Enjoy (especially all you sadists out there! yes, you)!_

**Chapter 1: Siera**

The thin, fragile-looking girl in ragged black clothes walked alone up to the black carriage, weaving as if she could not see where she was going. The moonlight shone down on her, revealing a pale face half-hidden by her long, messy hair. She was pretty, but her cheeks were slightly sunken in and her unfocussed eyes bereft of life, as if some part of her soul had been drained away.

Her hand stretched out as she neared the carriage. She tottered unsteadily as she took the last few steps, stopping when her hand rested against the side of the carriage. Sliding her palm in a practised search pattern over the lacquered black wood, she soon found the door handle. Curling her fingers around it and gave it a yank. Then she backed away until her back hit a tree. The reason for the blankness in her eyes was evident. She was blind.

"Come out, vampire," she whispered. "Come and get me."

The carriage door swung silently open. The vampire within lifted his hand from the exposed bosom of the young woman he had been caressing just a moment ago and stood to exit the vehicle. The beautiful, voluptuous redhead let out a whimper of relief and scrambled deeper into the carriage to curl up, shaking, in a corner. She pulled her chemise back up over her shoulders and clutched the thin white fabric tightly in place.

"You will know the price of interrupting my sport, wench," the vampire, now standing right in front of the blind girl, growled softly. A deathly pale hand reached for her throat. She felt the brush of his fingertips, but held her ground. As his fingers curled around her neck, she lifted her face, letting the concealing curtain of hair fall aside.

"Ah," the vampire crooned. "A pretty one, if a little bedraggled. In that case …"

The hand around the girl's throat moved down and began to unlace her shirt. She reached out with a shaky hand and found his face by touch. With a teasing finger at the vampire's chin, she guided his face down near to hers. She turned her face aside, exposing her neck, tempting him. As the vampire nuzzled her neck, wondering whether to bite her yet, she put her lips to his ear and whispered, "It's the end for you, lecherous freak."

"What?" the vampire straightened and whipped around. The last thing he saw was a dark figure standing on the roof of his carriage. Then an arc of silver momentarily decorated the air, and he was bisected neatly down the centre. The slayer of the vampire had already sheathed his bright sword when the two halves of the body let out a spray of blood and fell to either side.

"Are you hurt?" the pale young man, whose handsome face was shaded from the moonlight by a black wide-brimmed hat, asked the blind girl.

"I'm fine," she replied perfunctorily. "You might want to take a look inside the carriage. I thought I heard someone inside."

She took hold of the edge of the vampire hunter's cloak and followed him as he approached the open carriage door. She could hear it now, the sobbing of the vampire's prisoner.

"You can come out now," she heard her companion say. "The vampire is dead."

"Why should I trust you?" a tear-soaked voice shot back. "You don't look so different from a vampire yourself! You and the harlot at your side! What kind of proper woman would have the audacity to seduce a vampire?"

"Hey, watch your mouth, you bitch," the blind girl snapped. "We just saved you, so show a little fucking appreciation and a little less fucking attitude. Try 'thank you', instead of a goddamn bunch of insults."

"Vianne, we could do with a little less of your colourful language right now," the hunter informed the blind girl quietly.

"Fine, deal with the _unpleasant_ woman yourself," Vianne said bad-temperedly. She stalked off to sulk, as she often did these days, a few metres away. All her kindness and patience of old had been replaced by cynicism and hostility since she had become blind about a month ago.

"What a self-righteous little hussy," the woman in the carriage scoffed.

"Are you all right?" the hunter asked. His tone of voice suggested he did not entirely care. But then again, he always spoke like that.

"What, trying to find out if I'm still edible?" the woman spat.

"For the last time, you idiot, he isn't a vampire, and neither am I," Vianne said loudly from where she stood. "He's a vampire _hunter_. Heard of those, O ignorant one?"

"No one asked for your opinion, whore," the woman snarled.

For a blind person, Vianne found her way back to the carriage door with surprising speed and accuracy. Leaning through the opening, she hissed in the woman's general direction, "It's not my _opinion_, you disagreeable bitch, it's a _fact_. Get your vocabulary right before you try to disparage people. As for me being indecent, you aren't any better. Are you trying to tell me the vampire has never touched you? I bet you even enjoyed it, didn't you?"

There was a screech of distress from the woman within. "Vianne," the hunter said in warning. "That's going too far."

"Look, D, I have a problem with ungrateful sluts who dish out insults to the people who save them from vampires. She insulted me, not you, so you stay out of this," Vianne retorted.

"D? You're _the_ vampire hunter D? The … dhampir?" the woman in the carriage cut in suddenly. Her tone of voice had changed abruptly. Where it had been hard and cutting before, it was now soft, breathy and full of wonder. Almost seductive, even.

"I am called D," the hunter answered simply.

"I've heard of you," the woman said. "I'm sorry I wronged you … I really thought you were a vampire. My name is Siera. Thank you for rescuing me."

Vianne let out a groan of disgust and walked away again. "Two-faced bitch."

"I was paid to kill the vampire, nothing more," D said.

"I was being quite unpleasant. I guess I was just scared and defensive. I extend my apologies and appreciation to your companion as well."

"Don't need 'em, thanks for nothing," Vianne said bluntly.

Siera rushed out of the carriage, ran up to Vianne and grabbed the younger woman's hands. "Please, I didn't mean what I said to you. You must forgive me."

Vianne yelped in surprise and yanked her hands away. "Fine, whatever! Just … don't touch me!"

Siera stared at the blind girl with tears in her green eyes. "Do … do you find me … unclean? I swear! I swear he hasn't done anything to me! I'm still chaste … I haven't been bitten … I'm not defiled …" she stammered, eventually dissolving into tears and sinking to her knees.

Vianne let out a cry of exasperation. "Stop it already! I don't think you're unclean, okay? I would think myself unclean first. I just don't like being touched by strangers. It has something to do with not being able to see what they're doing."

"I'm sorry," Siera mewled piteously. "Do you really not think I'm filthy?"

For the first time, a trace of sympathy surfaced in Vianne's expression. "Yeah. You're gonna be fine," she said in a grudgingly soothing voice.

D moved to help Siera to her feet. "We'll take you back to the town. It's a two week ride from here. You'll be home soon."

"Oh, thank you," Siera murmured, burying her face in D's shoulder.

"Don't think too much on it. We're going back to collect his payment anyway," Vianne said. She was sick of Siera's cloying voice. "Wait. How are three people going to fit on one horse?"

"We could take the carriage," D said.

"No!" Siera screamed suddenly. "I refuse to go back into it!"

"How about we just take one of the horses?" Vianne suggested. "There _are_ horses, right? I'm assuming. She can follow us on one."

D glanced at the two cyborg horses, not too different from his own, tethered to the carriage. It would slow them down, but it would work. Turning to Siera, he asked, "Can you ride?"

"No," she replied. "Even if I could, I would have nothing to do with that carriage whatsoever."

"Shut up already," Vianne snapped, losing her patience. "I'll ride the damn thing by myself. D can take you on his horse. Jeez. Don't you _ever_ stop whining?"

"You can't see where you're going," Siera said. "How could I make you ride on your own?"

_Good point._ Vianne was quiet for a moment. Then she rolled her eyes and said, "Are you stupid or what? D can hold the reins and lead it along." _Please, just shut up now so that we can get going and be rid of you sooner._

Sensing the raw edge to Vianne's temper, D said, "It's settled then."

"About time," Vianne grumbled under her breath as D spread a thick blanket from inside the carriage over the horse's back and helped her onto it.

* * *

For the umpteenth time since the journey back to town began, Vianne found herself rolling her sightless eyes. Siera was the most irritating creature she had ever come across.

_I bet she's gorgeous and blonde._

Right on one count, at least. Siera's hair was the colour of polished copper though.

"Please, don't leave my side while I sleep. I dream, whenever I drift off. I dream of him, of how he touched me…"

_Disgusting._ Vianne rolled over in her blankets, a comfortable distance away from where Siera clung to D like a proverbial leech, and went to sleep.

* * *

Vianne opened her eyes when she woke, out of habit. She was lying on a large, elegantly carved bed made with heavy, classy sheets. The room around her was filled with extremely dim purplish light. It was a small room with no doors or windows, and the only other piece of furniture in the room was a low dresser. Black fog milled around low to the ground, such that she could not see the floor.

Abruptly, it struck her that she could see. Surprise and joy flooded through her before she realised that she was in a dream. Wondering what was going on, she looked down at herself. She was wearing a plain, semi-translucent long-sleeved white nightdress. The hem barely covered her hips.

Then she noticed the presence of another being in the room. She looked up again and saw a figure standing at the foot of the bed. It was a male figure, wrapped in a long dark purple cloak. His face was completely shrouded in shadow.

The figure climbed onto the bed. A lean, muscular arm reached from within the folds of the cloak, and a human-looking hand touched her leg. Vianne tried to shy away from the contact, but found that she could not move a muscle. Panic began to build in her chest.

The faceless man crawled over her while she lay still and powerless on the bed. She let out a scream of pain and shock when he shot his index finger all the way into her vagina. His free hand grabbed her breast and squeezed it painfully, kneading it as his finger clawed away inside her. He seemed completely oblivious to her cries of pain.

He withdrew his finger, smearing her fluids on the inside of her thigh. Then he threw the cloak off, revealing himself to be stark naked underneath it. His sculpted body was completely hairless, and looked as if it were chiselled out of smooth rock. His skin was the dead, ugly white of a maggot. The erect organ between his legs was huge by human standards.

The pale man pushed the skirt of Vianne's dress up over her waist, exposing her entire pelvis. With smooth, hard hands he roughly shoved her legs wide open, then forced his large penis into her with a ferocious thrust. She felt something inside tear.

Vianne screamed, and in that moment she regained control of her body. She thrashed wildly, trying to throw the man off. But it was no use; he was firmly lodged between her legs. He pressed himself down upon her, immobilising her with his weight.

His large hands grabbed her shoulders and pinned them down on the mattress. Pushing his torso up to give himself a better angle, he pulled halfway out of her and thrust in again, hard, until his hips ground against hers. She let out a choked cry of pain.

The man ducked down and bit down hard on the base of her neck, then pulled his head back as if trying to tear her flesh off. She wailed, struggling even harder. But the man's strength was inhuman -- he kept her restrained with no effort at all.

Then he began a thrusting frenzy with his hips, shoving his shaft into her again and again, each time with brutal force. As his thrusting picked up speed, Vianne, who was in too much pain to even cry out, smelt blood in the air, and felt considerable amounts of it soaking into the sheets around her crotch.

As he raped her, the man was busy with his mouth, leaving bleeding bite marks on various spots on her neck and even on her chest. She soon lost the strength to even struggle, and was reduced to flailing weakly while tears streamed from her eyes.

Suddenly the man went still with his head thrown back, and Vianne felt something pumping out of him into her. She screamed, and somehow found the strength to thrash about again; she did not want that stuff in her body.

When the ejaculation ended, the man ripped his shaft out of her with such force that fresh strobes of pain shot through her nerves. She twisted aside, blinded by tears. She felt defiled, tainted, corrupted by his violation. And it hurt so much...

"D ..." Vianne choked out the name of the one upon whom she depended for protection.

"Do you think he can save you?" the faceless man asked, his deep, hoarse voice filled with contempt. "What foolishness. Had he been able to save you from blindness? No, wait, I forgot. He _caused_ your blindness because he wasn't there to protect you."

With that, he grabbed her by the hair and flung her off the bed. She rolled across the floor and crashed into the dresser. She could not see here -- she was surrounded by the black, blinding fog. She could not breathe either, for it choked her, smothered her...

She could vaguely feel the man kicking her in the ribs, in her stomach and across her back. It hurt, it hurt like hell, but she barely noticed, because she was already slipping away.

Then the man grabbed a handful of her dress and hauled her up out of the fog. She took a deep, painful breath, and air rushed into her lungs, expanding her battered ribcage. By the time he slammed her down on top of the dresser, she had lost consciousness.

* * *

Vianne sat bolt upright, her eyes flying open. Her entire body was drenched in cold sweat, and her breathing was harsh and ragged. She could feel thin streaks of crust left by dried tears on her face. Yet, comfortingly, she could see nothing but infinite darkness. There was no burning pain between her legs, no choking fog, no blood. She had escaped.

Over to her right, she could hear Siera sobbing. Probably falling all over D, too. Something about her deceased, but nonetheless very frightening vampire captor. Vianne's heart burned with fear of falling back asleep, and she thought of calling out for D. _Nah. He has his hands full with that pathetic woman. I'm stronger than she is. I won't be like her. I'll be fine._

She lay back down and pulled her blanket over her head. Sleep did not come. Somewhat thankful for that, she lay awake in the darkness that was, for her, perpetual.


	2. Haunted

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_#Hey all, I'm back! After...erm...a really long time. I've been busy, and my brain hasn't seen fit to provide me with inspiration. Well, my exams have just ended, and my torture is over for the year, so in my joy I've managed to whack out the next chapter to this story. Enjoy (as I will my temporary freedom from studies)!_

**Chapter 2: Haunted**

Vianne sat up when she felt the first rays of the morning sun warm the skin on her face. Her other senses had gotten much sharper since she had lost her sight. Before, she would never have felt such a small change in temperature.

She rubbed her dry, aching eyes. She could not see them, but they were red and puffy, with dark circles underneath. There had been no sleep for her the entire night, for the dream blazed too strongly in her memory.

Silently, she shoved her blankets away and stood. The chilly air of dawn stung the exposed skin on her face and hands, tempting her to duck back under the protective woollen covers. But Vianne knew that if she did, she might fall into sleep, and she did not want that. No, not at all.

What she wanted most of all at the moment was to go for a walk, alone in the peace and quiet of dawn, alone with nothing but the chirping of the rising birds. Yet she could not do even that, because she would not be able to find her way back without the use of her eyes. Bitterness gnawed at what was left of her heart. Everything came down to her blindness. It crippled her; it made her dependent. It left her unable to fulfil even a simple want like going for a walk. She was its prisoner, and she would languish in its dungeon until death came for her in its dank depths.

Vianne sat down and curled up, pulling her knees up against her chest. What had she done to deserve this fate? In her mind, she traced her life back to where it had all begun—when she had foolishly given blood from her own veins to save the life of a dhampir dying of sun syndrome. She had done what no other human would have dared to do. From then on, her life had ceased to have any semblance of normality. And now she was paying the price. If she had left D to die back then, like anyone else would have done, she would be back in her hometown with her loving godfather and friendly neighbours, admiring the town gardens. With her eyes!

_My eyes._ The thought unleashed a torrent of resentment and regret through Vianne's mind. If she had not obtained the two fang marks on her wrist, there she would be, happy and whole, back at home. She would have been spared all the pain and suffering she had endured thus far. She would not be haunted by grotesque nightmares that were doubtless the result of the horrors she had experienced. She would not be missing her eyesight and a large part of her soul.

Death. She was haunted by death, too. Three deaths, in fact. The first, a simple country boy who had blocked machine gun bullets, fired by his own neighbours, for her because he had believed her innocent of the charges they wished to execute her for. She could barely recall his face, but she remembered how his body had jerked as the bullets had ripped through his flesh.

The second. Tears pooled in Vianne's eyes. The second man who had died for her was the greatest irony of them all. He was her long-lost older brother, whom she had found because she had chosen to travel with D. He had also been disembowelled alive protecting her from the danger she had put herself in. She still could not decide which was worse—not knowing him at all or finding him only to watch him die for her sake.

And then there was Rydel. Vianne felt a stab of pain in her chest as the guilt that had already eaten away most of her heart began its efforts anew. Rydel, the man who had started out as her enemy. He was the reason she had become the dark, brooding creature she now was. His death was her sin, the unforgivable sin of murder. She had killed him mainly to save her own life. Even if, as he had fought the vampire's will that had sought to control him and make him attack her, he had told her to, it still made her guilty. His blood was all over her hands. Worse, he had loved her. Even now, she could still feel the tenderness of the kiss he had placed on her lips. Had she loved him?

_What does it matter? He's dead! Dead because of you! Dead because of your mistakes! Dead, dead by your own hand!_ The accusatory voice in Vianne's head started up again. _It doesn't matter if you felt the same for him. Grieve, Vianne. Grieve for him, and suffer, because you owe it to him. You owe it to all of them!_

Vianne lowered her head and buried her face in her arms, letting her pain wash over her. Curled up like a frightened hedgehog, she allowed tears to overcome her.

* * *

D glanced at Vianne, who was perched somewhat unsteadily on the horse beside his. She had not said anything all day, not even one of her acid remarks. Neither had she eaten anything. The dark circles under her eyes told him that she had not slept, either. She simply sat astride the horse's back, swaying weakly, with tears trailing down her cheek. Something was obviously wrong with her. He could discern as much without her telling him anything. Not that she ever told him anything these days. She had refused to breathe a word about what had happened before he had found her blind and alone in the vampire's manor.

"Vianne? What's wrong?" he asked, for good measure.

"What's right?" she shot back almost immediately. She was like an injured animal, D thought, snapping at everything that came at her, regardless of its intentions. She had retreated somewhere deep inside herself, alone with whatever was in the darkness that haunted her.

D changed tact. "You should eat something, or you will collapse."

"I'm not that weak," she retorted. _Even if I'm blind, I'm stronger than that. _"And I have no appetite. Mind your own business."

At that moment, both D and Vianne stiffened visibly in their saddles. Their ears had caught the faint scuffling sounds in the trees all around them. Something had noticed their passage through the forest, and was coming for them.

Surprisingly, it was Vianne who identified the source of the noise. "Spiders," she hissed as she reached into the saddlebags on either flank of her horse and pulled out a pair of pistols. Her brother's pistols. How she planned to use them without being able to see anything was beyond D.

Sure enough, small black shapes with eight legs began clustering on the branches directly above the trio. Each carapace-armoured spider was the size of a large cat, and had a set of venomous stingers arranged around their rear spinnerets on the ends of their jointed abdomens. There was a second set of spinnerets between their fangs, which were loaded with deadly poison too.

The largest of the pack jumped from above and landed a few metres away with a loud thump. Without hesitating, Vianne fired off a shot in the general direction of the noise. The bullet struck the ground right next to the spider and blew up, blasting off all four of the legs on its right side. The maimed arachnid let out a horrible screech of agony and started rolling around on the ground, spreading yellowish sap-like liquid from its wounds everywhere. Vianne did not need to aim after all; the pistols were loaded with explosive rounds.

D leapt off his horse, bringing Siera with him, as a dozen spiders descended upon him with snapping fangs. The ferocious creatures brought his horse down with the impact of their landing, then pounced upon him. A single sword stroke sent all of them flying back in pieces.

Vianne had barely gotten her feet out of the stirrups before a dozen more of the creepy crawlies crashed down on her horse, toppling it. The moment the horse's shoulder struck the ground, she rolled off, blowing up the spiders jumping at her. She was gripping her pistols so hard that her knuckles were turning white – she was scared to death.

More spiders landed all around the three humans. D left Siera where she was and worked an ever-widening circle around her, killing the creatures before they could even come close. Some distance away, Vianne was holding her own, if barely.

She let out a yelp of shock when a thick strand of sticky spider silk latched onto her arm, yanking her down to her knees. Quickly twisting her wrist to align the pistol in her hand with the thread, she squeezed the trigger, firing an explosive bullet straight into the open jaws of the spider that had lassoed her.

Then she screamed when another spider leapt onto her back, clinging onto her clothing with little hooks on the ends of its jointed legs, reared up and stung her on the back of the neck, depositing the poison in its stingers into her bloodstream. Vianne desperately grabbed one of the spider's legs and flung it off, but the effort cost her. Overcome by a wave of dizziness, she dropped her pistols and went sprawling on the ground, unable to summon the strength to rise. Encouraged by this show of weakness, the other spiders closed in.

Vianne felt a strange calm as deep, comforting darkness seeped into her mind, blocking out her consciousness. Black blood, tainted with venom, trickled from the puncture wounds on her neck, but she could barely feel its warmth. With a triumphant screech, one of the spiders decided to take a chance and leap at her. The last thing she heard was a loud electric crackle followed by a screech of pain and the ugly cracking noise of spider carapace meeting hard ground. Then she passed out before she could begin to wonder what was going on.

From where she sat, safely out of the reach of the spiders thanks to D, Siera watched the translucent blue bubble around Vianne effortlessly repel spiders, each contact causing bright blue electric sparks to fly. In her eyes, there was a strange mix of apprehension and contempt.

_The little blind wench is better protected than I thought. Looks like I'll have to do something about that._

* * *

D picked Vianne up from where she lay, in the centre of a ring of dead spiders, and retrieved her pistols for her. The spiders all looked somewhat charred, and some of them were even giving off foul-smelling smoke. Her face was deathly pale, and blood vessels blackened with poison showed through the translucent skin. She had taken a deadly dose of spider venom into her body, but already the tiny trickle of power D had left in her blood was repairing the damage. The wounds on the back of her neck were no longer as purple, or as swollen, as they had been just minutes ago. In a couple of hours, she would wake up, throw up, and then be as good as new.

As good as she could be without her eyesight and carrying a heart laden with unspoken pain, anyway. D felt a deep sense of guilt, worry and pity as he looked down at the petite girl in his arms. Much, if not all, of what she had suffered had been, directly or indirectly, his fault. Perhaps, just perhaps, one day she would forgive him as she had once, but what he had done to her life would likely haunt him for a long, long time.

"Is she all right?" Siera asked as she approached, skirting the fried spiders. Concern etched faint lines onto her beautiful face. "I think she was stung. I thought the creatures would get her for sure, but something amazing happened … she was protected by some sort of field that burnt the spiders and threw them back away from her."

The trace of tenderness in D's dark eyes as he gazed down at Vianne's pale countenance sent a stab of bitterness and annoyance through Siera's heart. She bit her lip, keeping her expression one of genuine concern.

"She will survive. There is no need to worry."

"I'm glad to hear that."

_No, I'm not. What will it take to get rid of her?_

* * *

Vianne opened her eyes, and saw the naked faceless man looming over her. Her back was pressed against a hard surface -- presumably the top of the dresser -- and her arms were pinned. Fear once again gripped her heart -- she was back in the same nightmare.

_Not again. Can't he just let me die in peace?_

"Welcome back, Vianne," the faceless stranger said derisively. His hand grabbed her hair and roughly shoved her off the dresser onto the ground. But he held her upright in a kneeling position by tugging mercilessly at her hair, until it felt like her scalp was going to be peeled off her head. The black fog swirled around her waist.

Then he pulled her head back, so hard that her neck felt about to snap. She opened her mouth to cry out in pain, and immediately found it filled with something hard and phallic. Before she even realised what had happened, he thrust all the way in, his groin slamming against her face.

The shaft in her mouth was shoved down her throat, gagging her. Then it was withdrawn halfway before being forcefully thrust in again. She was frozen again, helpless to resist. She could barely even breathe as she knelt there and listened to the rough grunts of her captor.

Utter disgust filled her, a few minutes later, when semen filled her mouth and rushed down her throat. She choked, and coughed violently. When the man withdrew his penis and released her, she fell over on all fours, vomiting out the fluid and everything else in her stomach.

A muscular arm grabbed her around the waist and picked her up. The world spun, and the next thing she knew, her front slammed into the wall, hard. The side of her face hit the hard, smooth surface, and she heard a crack. Her head spun, and she felt nauseous. Something warm trickled down the side of her head.

"Can't stomach it, can you?" the man growled. "It doesn't matter. I will find other ways."

Vianne threw her head back and let out a terrible, piercing scream when he thrust into her from behind, and she felt her skin and flesh split. Her scream petered out, then began anew as the tireless rapist began his heavy, powerful thrusts.

She felt a black screen settle slowly over her mind, dampening her awareness of the excruciating pain, if not the pain itself. She could feel nothing but relief as she anticipated the darkness that would take her back to the real world, or to death, anywhere, away from this continuous nightmare.

"You can't escape from me, Vianne," the man whispered into her ear, his voice penetrating the haziness of her mind. "Every time you fall asleep, I will be here. I walk your dreams. You will never escape me."

Vianne felt herself slipping away, fast. Good. She did have time for a few parting words, though. Parting her dry lips, she murmured, "Fuck off. No pun intended."

* * *

"Ouch." Vianne raised her head slightly off the ground. Her entire body ached, and she was so ravenous that her stomach seemed to be digesting itself.

"You're awake," Siera's voice greeted her as her head cleared.

Vianne let her head fall back onto the thin blanket between it and the hard ground below. "My God, am I in hell? I thought I'd be able to make it to heaven, but since you're here …"

"You're not dead, stupid."

"So I figured. After all, I doubt even hell would take you in."

Siera's beautiful face was marred by an ugly look of pure hatred as she said in a sinister whisper, "You think you're really witty, aren't you? Let's see how much tongue you have left after I'm done with you, meddlesome girl. Just wait and see."

Vianne listened to her go away. _After she's done with me? What's that supposed to mean?_

A minute or so later, someone else came up and crouched beside her. Someone with a lighter step. Vianne's guarded, unfriendly demeanour did not soften in the least. He might have saved her this time, but the deep-seated resentment she had nursed for him since losing her sight remained just as strong as before.

"Do you have an appetite now?" D asked. There was no emotion in his voice, which was flat and perfunctory.

"As a matter of fact, I'm starving," Vianne admitted, too worn out by her body's battle with the spider's poison to be stubborn. She sat up and glared with sightless eyes in the direction of his voice. "Are you going to sit there and gloat, or are you going to give me food?"

The edge of a spoon pressed gently against her lower lip. Instinctively, she swallowed its contents – thick, warm stew. Then she realised she was being fed, like some helpless invalid.

"I'm not a child. I can eat on my own," she snapped, making a blind grab for the spoon. A large hand, surprisingly gentle, stilled her with a touch to her shoulder. Refilled, the spoon once again touched her lips.

Vianne ate one more mouthful, then flopped back down on the blankets, turning away to hide the tears in her eyes. "I still feel sick. Leave it there. I'll finish it later."

D was there for what seemed like an eternity. Then, finally, he straightened up slowly and went away, leaving Vianne alone in her darkness once more.


	3. Lunacy

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_#Hello all, it's been a really long time. Sorry (and this is where I make my excuses), but I've just been caught up with life, and all that. But oh well, here is, at last, a new chapter. It's short, and is something of a filler, but the plot will develop more in the next instalment. At any rate, this story is looking to be a rather short one. But hey, who cares, there're still four more parts to the series. Make do with this static little chapter for the moment, and I shall try to get chapter 4 up asap. Well then. Until next time!_

**Chapter 3: Lunacy**

Vianne awoke at the first light of dawn, shaking off, as she did now every morning, the clinging remnants of her nightmare. Every night, she was the faceless dream walker's personal whore. No days off, not since she had started work.

Something was different this morning – an unfamiliar lapse in the monotonous routine that had claimed her life in the few days that they had been travelling with Siera in tow. Usually, when she rose, she could hear D begin to stir and Siera's deep breathing as she slept, or, more often, Siera crying about her own nightmares. But today, Vianne could sense neither of her companions' presences. They were gone.

Uttering a foul curse, she stumbled over to where D and Siera had been sleeping the night before. Feeling around, she soon located the light wool blanket that Siera used, carelessly tossed aside on the ground. D's saddlebags were still there, too.

_Where'd they go in such a hurry?_

Reluctantly, Vianne turned her mind inward, seeking out the dark orb of seemingly unlimited energy that was always present, buried in the deepest corners of her consciousness. After a moment of hesitation, she lowered the mental barriers she had placed around the foreign presence and opened herself to it, allowing herself to become aware of the man who was, technically, her master by virtue of the two puncture wounds on her left wrist.

For a moment, the sheer immensity of his dark presence overwhelmed her, leaving her crouched senseless on the ground. Then she pushed aside the hypnotic whispers of dark, ancient melodies that infused his presence, and focussed on locating him. Her mind, which was still largely human, was unable to discern anything other than that he was close by, however.

Her head spun as the powerful music of his mind threatened to overwhelm her again, addling her thoughts with whispers of strength, and isolation, and blood. She gave up on trying to locate him through their connection and cut her mind off from his again, throwing the dark orb in her mind's eye, the representation of his presence, back behind firm, unyielding barriers. She was more likely to lose herself than to find him through that link.

_Why do I even bother? If he wants to run off and leave me behind, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it,_ Vianne thought , she sat down on the ground and resigned herself to a long wait.

Her resignation lasted all of about two minutes. Somehow, her irritation at being left behind without so much as prior notice drove her to do something she would not have thought of otherwise. Keeping D's presence a dark, dangerous prisoner behind her mental barriers, she reached through those same barriers with her mind and touched it, focussed on probing it for his location. Something like that probably came intuitively for those with vampire blood, but she needed to make the conscious effort.

No spooky, haunting melodies of darkness and death distracted her this time. Instead, she felt a compulsive tugging on her mind that tried to draw her somewhere to her left. Getting to her feet, she began to walk in the direction in which her mind directed her, walking slowly with her hands outstretched so she would not bump into anything.

After a few minutes of around bumping blindly, Vianne's ears caught snatches of Siera's hysterical voice. Stumbling slightly over the uneven ground, she made her way towards the source of the sound, moving more quickly now.

"Let go of me!" she could hear Siera shrieking. "I cannot take this anymore! Just let me die! Let me end this torment ..."

_Attention-seeking melodramatic bitch._

Vianne emerged from among the trees she had been fighting through, and was immediately blasted by a rather strong gust of wind. She would hear running water far below – she guessed that she was near the edge of a cliff overlooking a river. Siera's hysterical voice indicated her presence, and Vianne's mind told her that D was here too, probably trying to stop Siera from committing suicide.

"Why are you here?" Siera screeched when she saw Vianne. She was thrashing hard against D's restraining arms. "Are you here to gloat as I cast myself into the river, as I succumb to the agony your whispered poison has inflicted on me?"

Vianne frowned. "What the hell are you talking about, you crazy woman?" she demanded.

"Your ignorance is as false as your blindness!" Siera snarled. "All this time, you have been making it a point to make me feel inferior, unwelcome, filthy! Even hell wouldn't take me in, that's what you said! What grievance do you have against me that you must treat me so? I might have been rude to you the first time we met, but all this while I've been trying to make amends, while struggling with my own memories of what happened. Must you make it any worse for me, you cruel girl? Must you?"

"Oh, so you want to bring up _that_ conversation, do you?" Vianne retorted, bristling. "I won't deny that I said that, or that I have a strong dislike of you, but I'll have you remember that you bloody _threatened_ me back then!"

"And now you accuse me of things I am guiltless of!" Siera sobbed, her frenzy of emotion seeming very genuine. "Oh, how could _anyone_ be so unkind? I thought I would be given a fresh lease of life after escaping from the clutches of that vampire, but now all I can think about is how that experience has tainted me! Am I so soiled that even hell would cast me out? Then so be it! I shall seek death, and see if there is somewhere outside of heaven or hell where I may live in peace, away from the horrible place that is this world! Let go of me, D! I cannot live a life like this."

Vianne opened her mouth, but no words came. She was at once disgusted and bewildered at Siera's behaviour. Had her harsh words really affected Siera so much as to drive her to suicide? Yet it could not be. Siera was lying; she _had _threatened Vianne back then. But what was Siera trying to achieve from all this drama?

"Please try to calm down," D said quietly to Siera. To Vianne, he said in almost the same toneless voice, "I thought I told you to watch your language a little."

"Look, I don't make it a point to insult her! That was just _one_ incident! How the fuck was I supposed to know she's so stupid as to want to die over it? And, for the record, she's lying. She _did _threaten me," Vianne answered unhappily.

Siera struggled some more and howled about her life having no meaning in this cruel world. This got on Vianne's nerves so much that she told D, very curtly, to just let Siera go ahead and kill herself so that there could be some long-awaited peace and quiet. This, of course, incited an even greater suicidal response from Siera.

"I will not ask you to like our guest, Vianne, but you should be more civil," D said, his quiet voice somehow travelling over Siera's passionate screaming. "Your unveiled displays of dislike are completely uncalled-for."

Vianne was mildly stunned. She would not have imagined D lecturing anyone. Yet here she was, being chided by a socially inept dhampir about her rudeness.

Perhaps it was true that she had been extremely rude to Siera. But the fact remained that Siera was lying, and that she was struck with hysteria for the sole purpose of discrediting Vianne. On top of that, D was clearly ignoring Vianne's protests and taking Siera's side, probably thinking that Vianne was the biased one. Her open show of revulsion had worked against her.

Vianne was rankled that her companion trusted her so little after they had gone through so much, but even in her anger she knew that any further protest or accusation against Siera would only lower D's regard for her at this point in time. As had become usual for her, she deserted her emotions, letting them rage by themselves in a corner of the darkness she inhabited, and assumed a cold, uncaring attitude that almost matched D's.

"Believe what you like," she told D in a voice pierced full of icicles. "I had, and will have, nothing to do with this whatsoever."

She was true to her word, and remained silently standing where she was, until Siera saw fit to quiet down and give up her suicide attempt to cry all over D instead. The redhead clung to him like a lost child as they returned to camp. Vianne trailed behind the other two, following the sound of their footsteps, her stony silence belying the violent chaos in her heart.

* * *

Vianne rubbed her wrists and shuddered involuntarily as the trio travelled, in theory moving closer to a town that refused to appear on the horizon soon enough for her taste. Her nightmare of the night before had been of a particularly interesting nature. Her captor had produced rope and a whip from nowhere, and applied them most generously to her person. She could still somewhat feel the bite of the whip all over her body, and the burn of the rope on her limbs as she struggled.

The road here was lined with low, skinny trees that spread their extremely thin, springy branches out across the path. As Siera passed ahead of Vianne, she pushed back a particularly low branch, and carelessly let go of it once she was clear. The thin, whip-like plant appendage snapped back into place, whacking Vianne across the chest.

She let out a scream, stumbled back, and fell. As she was unable to see her surroundings, her preoccupied mind had jumped rashly to the conclusion that the fiend who walked her dreams had found his way into the real world, that he had come for her.

Light footsteps approached her. Vianne scrambled backwards frantically. "Oh my God, get away from me!"

"Calm down," a familiar, quietly powerful voice said.

Realising that the one approaching her was D, Vianne felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Perhaps it was over, as soon as it had begun? "Something hit me! A creature in the form of a man, with a whip! Did you kill it?"

"Did you see anything of the sort?" D asked, his normally toneless voice acquiring a light touch of confusion.

"No, I just felt him attack me," Vianne said. "But I know it is him! I just know. Did he get away? Did you even see him?"

"No one attacked you," D told her. "What hit you was a tree branch like this one."

She heard something like snapping wood, and then a smooth, springy branch was deposited into her hands. She felt its surface, and knew that it was a branch. She bent it a few times, and understood what had happened to her.

The last vestiges of panic and fear retreated obediently into the recesses of her mind as reason pushed them aside. Her face reddened drastically with embarrassment. She had just completely lost it.

"But who is the one you mentioned?" D asked suddenly. "How did you come to know of him?"

His query only made Vianne blush even more. Utterly humiliated, she snapped defensively, "Don't you _dare_ try baiting me! I won't give you the satisfaction of telling me I was imagining things. Just leave me alone!"

Acquiescing, D probed no further and resumed travelling. As they walked, Siera drew close to him and whispered with fear in her voice, "What just happened? Has she gone mad?"

D needed no reminder on Siera's part to consider the possibility. He had already been thinking about it. It was very likely that Vianne's mind had been destabilised from the many things she had been through in the time since she had left her home to travel with him. She had been ambushed, nearly drowned, shot at, and almost separated from her left hand. And that was just what he knew. They had been separated for a time before she had blinded herself killing a vampire with the Sun Bracelet, and she alone knew what had befallen her during that period. It had to have been substantial, to have made her so bitter and vindictive. But had it been enough to drive her mad?

Vianne was unaware of D's misgivings as she followed behind, yet she was pondering the same thing herself. The horrors she had seen, in particular her ongoing nightmares, weighed heavily on her mind as she thought about her earlier outburst of paranoia. She understood very well that her psyche was on the brink of collapse. She knew that she needed to stop those nightmares, or she would at some point in time collapse under their assault.

Not for the first time, she wondered if she should talk in earnest to D about those nightmares. She had considered insisting on speaking with him alone and then telling him several times, but her pride, as well as her resentment, had always stopped her. She knew perfectly well that if she struggled alone, she would fall, but she was unwilling to ask for help.

She faintly wished that she had spoken to D earlier. After what had happened with Siera, and her own irrational outburst earlier, she was no longer sure that he would believe anything she said. Besides, even if she told him, what could he do? He could not very well enter her mind and cut down her tormentor.

And thus it was, once again, that Vianne put her story back in the earth and buried it. Her darkness remained, as it had always been, her very own.


	4. Release

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# I shall give no excuses for my lapse in updating, but merely kowtow repeatedly in apology. Please enjoy what you can of this rather short chapter, and try not to be too angry with me :x  
_

**Chapter 4: Release**

Vianne 'awoke' face down on the bed. Her hair was matted, her body torn and bruised, and her clothes ripped and bloodstained from her numerous visits to the nightmare room. How many nights had the dream walker been tormenting her, violating her, beating her? She could no longer remember.

The dream walker's large, rough hands turned her over onto her back. She felt him carelessly shove his penis into her ruined genitals. Then he backhanded her across the face. She tasted blood.

"You are a hard one to break," he commented almost casually. "Most women would have gone crazy after so long. You're still rational."

"This isn't real, and I know it. _You_ aren't real," she replied. The sound of her own voice alarmed her; it was unrecognisable, hoarse and filled with pain.

The dream walker laughed sinisterly. "Yes, your mind is strong," he said. "Must be because of that bite on your wrist there. Some of his power passed into you, I expect. But where is he now? Why hasn't he saved you from me?"

He laughed again as he began to move his hips back and forth. Relaxed though his movements might seem, each insertion and withdrawal caused Vianne's pain receptors to skyrocket.

"Why won't you answer now?" he asked, laughing maniacally. "You know the answer, don't you? It's because he can't be bothered with you! Every night you try to tell him about me, but you can't! _She_ always wakes up from her own nightmares about her alleged vampire captor at the same time as you do, and he always goes to her first! And does he ever come back to you to ask you what's wrong afterwards? No! And he even trusts her word over yours! So much for being responsible for you, eh?"

Vianne tried to shut out what the dream walker was saying. She wanted to ignore it, to convince herself that it was not true. But she had been through everything, and she knew that he was only restating what she herself was starting to think.

"I'm all you have, Vianne! Your little secret!" the crazed dream walker declared in a mocking voice. It was as if he found her situation incomparably funny. "As for him, what has he ever done for you? He caused you to lose your home! You nearly died several times because of him! And you went blind because he left you alone to defend your own life! And what if I tell you now that I'm here in your mind because of him? He won't even help you get rid of me! Can you still regard him as your hero, your protector?"

Without waiting for climax, he pulled out of her and flung her off the bed, onto the fog-soaked floor again. He began beating her, kicking her across the floor, then pulling her head out of the fog to slap or punch her. He pinched her painfully, bit her, pulled her hair. And his words echoed in her head as fresh bruises formed on her body.

Finally, he crouched next to her and yanked her head out of the fog by her hair. Her face was inches away from the side of the dresser.

"Remember, Vianne," he snarled into her ear. "Remember that I am only in your mind. Remember that none of this would have happened if not for him. Why did you ever think you could treat that dhampir like a normal person when no one else does? Look where it's gotten you. Remember, he is your true enemy."

With that, he pulled her head back slightly, then cracked it against the edge of the dresser. A white blast of pain exploded in her head. Then all went mercifully black.

* * *

Vianne awoke from the dream, drenched as always in cold sweat. She lay as if paralysed in her blankets for a few seconds, her body still wracked with phantom pains from the attentions of the dark figure of her dreams. The temperature of the air around her told her that it was nearly dawn.

Eventually, she sat up slowly, schooling her drawn, horror-filled face into a normal expression. She knew that somewhere to her left, D leaned against a tree, with that woman huddled asleep against him as usual. She angled her head slightly in their direction and called out into the pitch darkness that affected her alone, "D."

There were soft rustling sounds, and sleepy groans from Siera. Sitting where she was, Vianne heard the softest of footsteps crossing the leaf-strewn ground towards her. Then she felt a slight breeze as D lowered himself into a crouch by her side.

"What is it?" he asked, his hand landing lightly on her shoulder and turning her to face him.

Upon hearing his cool, uncaring inquiry, she shrank back from his touch and screamed, "It's your fault! Everything that has happened to me is your fault! I've lost my home, my place in society, and my eyesight, all because of you! I endure horrifying nightmares every night, because you screwed up my life! I suffer so fucking much, and it's all your fucking fault!"

"If swearing at me makes you feel better, go ahead. I'll be here until you're done," D said, his tone not changing in the slightest.

It was as if D's words had unlocked the door that separated the dream world from reality, the door that Vianne had spent so much time struggling within her own mind to force shut and securely lock. That door burst open now, and the horrifying images -- her memories of the nightmare room -- flooded into the blank darkness that had until seconds ago been her safe refuge.

"Get away from me," she choked out, her voice a hoarse, almost hysterical whisper. "I want out. I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore. If I could just go back to a normal life, all of this would go away. Everything will be fine once I leave you. I know it. I want out. Go away, go away ..."

She yelped and tried to pull back when she felt D take her hand. But his grip, while gentle, seemed unbreakable. He pried her hand open and deposited something heavy into her palm before letting go. Gold coins clinked as the cloth pouch landed in her hand along with the straps of the saddlebags that held her belongings.

"A parting gift," he said, with no trace of emotion whatsoever. "Use it to go wherever you want, and live however you want. Go."

Vianne stared sightlessly in his general direction, stunned, for a few seconds. She did not know where she was, or which way to go. Figuring as much, D informed her that she could reach the main road if she turned right around and made her way through a stand of trees. Like a spooked animal, she whipped around a hundred and eighty degrees, and bolted.

D watched her go as the first rays of the sun bathed the land in thin rays of light. They had travelled together for a long time, and she had always stood by him, not to mention saved his life more than once. She had extended her unconditional friendship to him in a way no one else would have, but at what cost to herself? As D watched her stumble unsteadily into the trees and vanish from sight, he wondered how he had ever allowed a human to destroy her life for him like Vianne had. And yet that would all end now, without his ever having made her any amends. No, her departure simply meant that he could not do her any more damage. That was perhaps the best compensation he could ever afford her.

Siera fully awoke then, and began to, as she did every morning, cry for attention. Not quite in the mood to be her silent, indifferent pillar of solace this morning, D moved away and busied himself with his horse.

* * *

Upon reaching the main road and walking along it for an hour or so, Vianne came across a sheltered coach stand. Finding a bench by touch, she lowered herself unsteadily into it.

D had given her a lot of money – more than she had ever seen in her life. She would take the next coach that passed, and go somewhere far away, somewhere she could finally live in peace. Yet where would that be? She bore fang marks on her wrist, and was blind, alone and friendless. There was no one to take her in, no one to care for her, no way for her to support herself once the money ran out as it eventually would. Where would she find sanctuary? The town where she had been adopted and raised, where she had spent a childhood, safe and loved, playing in lush, beautiful gardens? No, she had left that place behind long ago. Or was it that it had left her?

Sanctuary. The word struck a chord in her memory. There was a place, a sanctuary that could only be unlocked by the ornate bracelet about her wrist. And in the village where the entrance to this sanctuary stood, she could perhaps find refuge. She had acquaintances and a modest living hopefully still waiting for her back there. Perhaps she should never have left.

Sanctuary. A place where one would find peace after adventure had lost its charms. In happier times, Vianne thought, she might have been the envy of the rest of her sex. In happier times, young girls would dream of adventures, of being whisked away to travel alongside a mysterious, handsome and incredibly powerful stranger. In the village where she had grown up, there had been that sort of prosperity that had allowed her to dream, to even think of travelling with a dhampir. In the stark reality of the perilous world outside of her hometown, however, adventure had a different meaning altogether.

Sanctuary. A final resting place, of sorts. She had been bitten by a dhampir, cast out by her foster father, flushed through water supply pipes, shot full of bullets, taken down by a swarm of giant spiders, raped by a man in her dreams; she had obtained magical bracelets, found and lost a brother, killed an innocent man with her own hands, faced a vampire alone. And she had come out of it, while neither completely sane nor able to see, alive and whole. She had seen all of life that there ever could be to see. Perhaps now it was time for her to extract herself from all that and gradually wish away what had been inflicted upon her by her own thirst for adventure. Her foolish desire to see the life of the legendary dhampir hunter.

Vianne rose at the sound of wheels and hooves—a coach was coming. It was coming to take her away from the life she had sacrificed everything to live. Did she regret coming this far, only to flee back into civilisation and society with her tail between her legs? She certainly did not like being blind and half-insane, but she had a feeling that, even knowing it would have turned out like this, she would still have made the same choice back then. Deep down, buried under layered scars, she still believed that it was better to have played with fire and gotten burnt than to never have felt its warmth. In a way, she felt a little like a war veteran, worn out and marred, yet bearing the trophy of D's friendship. They were friends, she believed, in a bizarre fashion. Then again, she was half-insane.

But what did it matter? The cyborg horse-driven coach came to a halt in front of her and remained still for a few moments. Then it was moving again, accelerating along the wide dirt road, and there was not a soul left at the coach stand.


	5. Sanctuary

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Hi there! Here's another chapter, too soon to be true coming from this tardy little lazy bum. Take it as recompense for my lags of epic proportions in the past. Anyone wants to join me in a toast to Vianne's deliverance?  
_

**Chapter 5: Sanctuary**

"I'm afraid I'm starting to tire of you," Vianne's tormentor said in a voice sheathed in steel as he hauled her up off the foggy floor and shoved her down on top of the dresser. "Besides, I don't have any more use for you."

Vianne glared up at him with bloodshot eyes. She had, in a way, grown used to his attentions. It no longer hurt so much when he beat her or violated her. At the end of weeks of the same torture, she no longer feared the faceless man who doled it out.

"Then let me go, you son of a bitch," she spat.

The man shook his head almost sadly. Vianne noticed that there was a knife in his hand. Fear, which she thought she had banished, returned to snare her heart in a cage of thorns. Its grip tightened as her captor traced the inside of her thigh with the tip of the blade. It was moving steadily upwards.

"I haven't tried fucking you with anything other than myself, have I?" the man remarked, a cruel glint in his eye. "Since I'm so bored with you, I might as well try it. Who knows? It might even rekindle my interest in you."

Vianne's heart seemed to shrivel and fall out of her chest. She knew that she was unlikely to survive this nightmare, if she could even die. Would the dreams end, after he killed her? Or would she die in real life too? Worse, would she be trapped here forever to suffer whatever agony he inflicted upon her?

Even though her insides were writhing with horror, Vianne turned her head away, to stop him from looking into her eyes and seeing how frightened she was of what he was going to do to her. As she did so, her eyes fell on the pale strip of skin on her wrist -- the tan line left by the Moon Bracelet.

Her eyes widened. It was as if the Moon Bracelet -- her one true protection -- had been locked away in a corner of her mind until now. She seemed to have totally forgotten its existence. In her dreams, that meant that it did not exist at all. Whatever horrible power was toying with her mind had made sure that she was defenceless.

Even as she realised that fact, a ghostly image of the bracelet began to form around her wrist. Within an instant -- although it seemed like ages to Vianne -- the image had solidified, and she could feel the cool weight of the wrist ornament resting on her flesh.

She had her bracelet now, her one true defence against the horrors of the world. A rush of new hope temporarily banished the fear clouding her mind. Yet what could she do with it? As far as she knew, it could only absorb energy and render any energy-based attack fired at her useless. How could it defend her against a knife?

As if indignant at being belittled so, the silver swirls on the surface of the bracelet flared to life, giving off a ghostly blue glow. The glow attracted the faceless man's attention, and he turned to look at the bracelet that had not been there before. Even if she could not see his face, Vianne could feel the shock emanating from him.

A bubble of translucent blue energy began to expand from the bracelet, growing ever bigger until it surrounded Vianne on all sides. When the outer surface of the bubble touched the man, there was a crackle of energy, and he was flung away like a rag doll. In that instant, the shadows perpetually shrouding his face vanished, and Vianne saw his features for the first time. His face was strangely feminine. In fact, had he been a woman, he would have been considered beautiful. She had no way of knowing, of course, that it was the same face as the one that nowadays hovered constantly at D's shoulder back in the real world.

Vianne watched, open-mouthed, as her tormentor flew into one of the walls and struck it with a shrill scream. He glared at her, spearing her with a lance of pure malice.

"You may have banished me, little bitch, but you cannot stop me," he said in Siera's voice, which shocked Vianne. "You were nothing but sport. My true target is your handsome companion, and you cannot save him. Go on, little one, keep running; flee from me!"

With that, he broke into maniacal laughter and disappeared in a puff of black smoke. And then the walls of the room began to melt away. When she finished watching everything around her dissolve, Vianne found herself standing, fully clothed and completely unscathed, in an endless black space.

The bubble shield faded away. There was no longer any need for it. For the first time in countless nights, Vianne's mind was her own. At long last, while she napped in the gently rocking coach, she could find rest and sanctuary among her dreams.

* * *

D's eyelids lifted, letting the moonlight fall upon his liquid obsidian eyes; it was the way he always woke. D's countenance was perfectly calm—he alone knew of the disturbance in his mind.

Like any human, D dreamt too; sometimes of past events, sometimes of the future, and sometimes of things that did not belong in this world at all. Yet instinctively he knew that the dream he had just experienced was of a completely different nature. Something was at work here, something devious enough to slip past the formidable defences of his alien mind and perturb him.

It was the first time D had ever encountered such a threat. It was a threat not because it endangered him, but because it was able to exist in the powerful mind that could repel even the strongest psychological attack and decipher the most intricate illusion. It had to be deliberate, and because of that D was almost certain that the dreams would continue.

Why had he suddenly begun having these dreams? What had changed? He was not currently up against any enemy that he knew of; he was merely escorting a near-victim of his last kill back to civilisation. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Wait. Something _was_ different.

Vianne was gone.

* * *

Vianne got off the coach at the entrance of the little village in the valley -- the village she had lived in for eight months some time ago. She had but one ally left, and he was here.

She had figured out the culprit behind her horrific dreams during the rest of the journey. That voice had been unmistakeable, and even that face—it was a face she could fully imagine Siera having. Somehow, Siera had the power to invade her mind and manipulate her dreams. It just had to be Siera, for the dreams had only come after D and Vianne had met the woman. Suddenly, the threat Siera had made out of nowhere made sense. And above all, she had indicated that she was after D now, and that meant, of course, that Vianne was determined to stop whatever she was planning. For revenge, and for …

There was a cry of recognition from someone on her left side. "Sister, you have returned!" a woman's voice exclaimed as the speaker shuffled towards Vianne. She recognised that voice; it was the voice of the woman she had saved from a sewer monster way back then.

"Yes, it's me," she said softly.

"My God, Sister, you look terrible!" the woman said sympathetically as she brushed Vianne's long, messy hair out of her face. "You've grown so much thinner. And your face is so gaunt. Sister, what happened to you?"

"I became blind," Vianne told the woman. "It's a long story. Right now I just want a few moments alone at the priest's grave. Could you bring me to the cemetery?"

"Of course," the woman agreed readily. She took Vianne's arm and led the girl through the streets to the church. She guided Vianne around the church building until they reached the cemetery gate.

"We're here, Sister," she said. "Do you need me to open the gate for you and lead you to the grave?"

"No, it's all right," Vianne replied with a wan smile. "I can find my way by touch. I remember where it is. Thank you so much."

"Sure thing," the woman replied. "If you're sure you don't need my help, Sister, I'll get back to my shopping. Do take care."

Vianne stood in front of the wrought iron gate and listened as the woman's footsteps faded away. When she was sure there was no one around, she stepped up to the gate and, instead of opening it, started to feel around for the cross that decorated it near the top. When she found it, she took off the Moon Bracelet and stood on tiptoe, slotting the accessory into the groove in the circle adorning the middle of the cross.

She stepped back as the gate mysteriously disappeared, leaving only the iron arch. The bracelet made a soft chink as it hit the ground. Vianne crouched, found it by touch, and picked it up. Putting it back on, she stepped through the gateway.

"Raphael!" she called as she stumbled down the narrow path leading from the gate. "Raphael, are you here?"

The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps reached her ears. A pair of strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her away from the edge of the path. She had been about to fall into the water surrounding the narrow marble walkway.

"Vianne, what are you doing?" the lunar sanctuary's guardian demanded. "You almost walked right into the water. Are you all right? You look terrible."

"Yeah, so I've heard," she replied. "I can't see anything, Raphael. I'm blind."

"What happened?" Raphael asked. She could hear the shock in his voice.

"The Sun Bracelet exploded in my face. Saved my life, but killed my eyes," she replied curtly.

Raphael winced. "Oh, that. The solar explosion. It's the Sun Bracelet's secondary ability. You were supposed to shield your eyes before using it ..."

"No one told me, dude," Vianne retorted. "Not until it was too late, anyway."

"All right, I'm sorry," he apologised. "But what brings you here? And where's the dhampir hunter?"

"I went crazy and said I never wanted to see him again. He was nice about it; he gave me money and told me to go. Maybe he thought I'd go home and beg my godfather to take me back in or something. It would be nice to go home again, I suppose, but I can't do that, not when I know what I know."

"You sound angry and scared at the same time," Raphael said. "What happened?"

Vianne took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she told him about Siera, the nightmares, and what she had found out about Siera's powers.

"Now I bet she's screwing with _his_ mind with her powers," she explained. "I don't know what she wants from him, but I'm sure it isn't anything good. When I realised it, I wanted to go back and kick her ass, but I can't do that. D probably thinks I'm completely nuts, so he won't believe a thing I say. And even if she's just a pathetic hussy I can't whack her when I can't see a thing. I didn't know what else to do, so I came ..."

Raphael saw the tears of anger and frustration welling in Vianne's sightless eyes. He was surprised that those tears had not yet been shed, after what he had heard. He could only imagine the torment she had gone through at the hands of this Siera; what had been done to her in those controlled dreams was the cruellest thing he had ever heard of.

"Come with me," he said simply. Taking Vianne's hand, he led her down the path and onto the circular platform in the middle of the flooded room. He carefully helped her down the steps encircling the platform until the calm blue water lapped at her feet.

"I'm going to help you, Vianne," he declared. "I'm going to give you something that will hopefully allow you to do what you feel needs to be done."

That said, he reached down and scooped up a cupped handful of the cool water. Before it trickled away, he guided Vianne's head down so that her eyes were pressed to his hand and bathed in the water. Then he just stood and let it trickle between his fingers back into the pool.

When the last of the water had trickled away, he let Vianne raise her head. "Open your eyes," he instructed.

Vianne opened her eyes, and was shocked when Raphael's face appeared in front of her. She could also see the marble floor, the lunar orb floating above, the pedestal ...

"You ... healed my eyes," she said, wonder filling her voice.

Raphael only looked sad. "Not completely," he said in a grave voice. "You can only see by moonlight. You can see here because of the light given off by the lunar orb. In complete darkness, sunlight or artificial light, you're still blind. But as long as there is a little moonlight, you can see clearly."

"So I can see at night if the moon is out?" she asked. At his nod, she said, "That's good enough. Raphael ... thank you."

He shook his head. "Don't thank me yet. I'm afraid it's not permanent. Your sight only lasts for three nights. At the end of the third night, you will be completely blind again. Whatever it is you plan on doing, you have to hurry. I'm sorry that there's nothing more I can do to help you."

Vianne smiled and shook her head. "It's enough. I'll make it work out, somehow. I never expected to have three nights of relief from blindness, Raphael. What you've given me is more than enough. Thank you."

On impulse, she stepped forward and hugged the blue-robed guardian. He smiled and hugged her back. "You're the one I chose to give the Moon Bracelet to. In a way, you are as much my charge as this place or the bracelet. Did you really think I'd leave you in the lurch?"

"I'd better hurry back and find them now," Vianne said. Raphael could hear the steel in her voice. Then her tone softened as she murmured, "You know, back when we lived in the church, there was this huge book on the altar? I read bits of it now and then. It said that Raphael is the name of an angel. Is that what you are? An angel from this wonderful sanctuary called Heaven?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and ran back down the long marble walkway. Raphael's beautiful blue eyes twinkled as he watched her, all the way until she disappeared through the archway on the far end of the chamber.


	6. Bloody Moon

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Yay! Another chapter! I will now congratulate myself for being hardworking! No, not really, I'm just bored. And randomly inspired. Actually the boomerang dude was going to be really random, then I got this random idea, and then he randomly became the instrument of Vianne's redemption! Oh dear. My writing process seems to be completely random. Is that a good thing, I wonder. Oh well. Shan't spoil any more of the very random plot of this chapter. Yeap, 'random' is the word of the day. Enjoy!  
_

**Chapter 6: Bloody Moon**

A single horse raced out of the woods into the crimson light of the setting sun, pursued closely by a pack of forest beasts. The darkness was coming, and the mangy, slobbery creatures were emboldened enough by its approach to emerge into the large open fields beyond their habitat.

Vianne was bent low in her saddle, urging her mount on with every fibre of her being. She was guided only by her ability to sense D's whereabouts and the instincts of the sable mare beneath her. Like the predators pursuing her, she, too, was anticipating nightfall.

The chase wore on, with rider and mount leading the pack of starving beasts across rapidly darkening fields of long grass. Hearing the pursuit grow ever closer through the pounding of blood in her ears, Vianne rode hard to save the horse she needed to complete her journey—her bracelet would protect her, but not her mount.

Suddenly, she yanked sharply on the reins, and her horse screeched to a halt just as the last rays of the sun vanished below the horizon. Triumphant, the forest beasts, huge bundles of muscle and fur and teeth and claws, quickly formed a circle around her. None of them had yet noticed the change in her demeanour, or the pistols in her hands.

A shot rang out just as a wisp of cloud drifted aside, allowing the moon to bathe the fields below in its radiance. The beasts froze as an explosive bullet struck the largest of them—the pack leader—squarely between the eyes, blowing its ugly head to bits.

Vianne stared straight into the eyes of the creature directly facing her. "You have a choice," she said as intelligent yet feral black eyes glared back at her. "Make do with eating your leader, or end up just like him." As she spoke, a dark, chilling aura began to spread from her body. A drop of blood splashed onto the grass, having fallen from her left wrist.

The hackles of the beasts around her rose, and they became restless, cowed by her aura yet spurred on by the smell of her blood. One of them succumbed to its hunger, and made a gargantuan leap at her from the side. Just as it was about to close its powerful jaws about her head in mid-air, a translucent blue bubble sprang up around her. The beast slammed into the outside of the bubble and was hurled ten metres away. It landed on its side with a whimper. Its fur was singed where it had made contact with the energy field.

Without hesitation, Vianne levelled one of her pistols at the creature as it got back on its feet and fired. There was another whimper, and a horrible, wet noise as the beast's chest cavity was blown open.

"Anybody else?" Vianne said coldly. The chilling miasma around her thickened.

Still with raised hackles, the beasts tucked their tails between their hind legs and backed away slowly. Leaving them to feast on the flesh of their dead, Vianne gave the reins a flick and resumed her journey, only to be brought up short when a steel boomerang flew out of nowhere, beheading the rest of the forest beasts before stabbing into the ground right in front of her horse. The spooked animal, already nervous from the chase and the smell of blood in the air, reared wildly, almost throwing her off.

Vianne barely managed to stay in the saddle, much less get her mount back under control. A man in a trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat strolled casually over and picked up his strangely unstained weapon. With equal ease, he reached out and grabbed the bridle of her horse, pulling it back down onto all four of its legs. The mare quietened almost immediately.

"That was impressive, how you handled those beasts," the man remarked, showing no sign of letting go. "Now, where're you off to in such a hurry?"

Vianne frowned. There was something about that voice …

"That's none of your business. Let go of my horse."

"All right," said the stranger as he released his grip on the bridle. "No need to get so uptight, miss, I just want to talk."

With that, he swept off his hat and looked up at Vianne. She gasped, and made her mount back away a few steps. "No … you can't be …"

The handsome visage staring up at her was that of Rydel.

* * *

"I can't believe it, I'm home," Siera said with tears in her eyes as she beheld the town at the end of the short stretch of road before her. "Thank you."

"It's after dark, and the gates are closed," D said impassively. "You'll have to wait till morning to enter."

Siera panicked. "I'll have to wait till morning? That sounds like … you're not going to leave me all alone out here, are you? I'll be torn to pieces by monsters! You can't leave me now!"

"I'll wait with you. I have unfinished business in town."

"Oh, thank you …"

Seeming to bluster with relief, Siera latched tightly onto D's arm. Something that was not tears gleamed in her large, shapely eyes. Something like tense satisfaction, and something else, too. Impatience.

* * *

"Rydel?" Vianne muttered. Her eyes were opened as wide as they could go, and in them glistened unshed tears. "But that's impossible. You're dead … I _killed_ you."

The man with the boomerang tilted his head to one side in confusion. "I think you have me mixed up with someone else, lady. The name's Corvin."

"Not … Rydel …?" _No, not Rydel … but why …? Why do they look so alike? _Vianne closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. Even if she knew this man could not be Rydel, just seeing his face sent stabs of pain and regret through her heart.

"I see," Corvin said, his tone unreadable. "You loved him."

"Did I, really?" Vianne responded, sounding somewhat dazed. "I'm sorry, but I really have to go."

Not looking at the man who bore such an uncanny resemblance to the magic archer who had loved her, Vianne tried to ride away. But Corvin shot out an arm with inhuman speed and caught hold of her horse's bridle once again.

"Hold on just a sec, miss," he said. Something about his voice this time round sent chills down Vianne's spine. "I said I wanted to talk. I'm a little curious about that ability of yours. Would you show me your left wrist, please?"

"Yes, the bracelet generates a protective field around me," Vianne told him irritably. "And no, you can't have it. Now let me go before I lose my patience."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about your bracelet," Corvin said, still in that frightening voice. "I have no need for a trinket like that. I was actually more interested in that scary aura you were giving off. You see, miss, I'm a vampire hunter."

Vianne could not quite mask the jolt of panic that she felt upon hearing those words. "I'm not a vampire, sir, so if you'd be so kind …"

"I don't think you're a vampire," Corvin said softly. With uncanny strength, he grabbed her left arm and pulled it down towards him, dragging her half out of her saddle. Pushing her sleeve up over her elbow, he moved her bracelet halfway up her forearm to reveal the two still-bleeding puncture marks on her wrist.

"Just as I thought," he murmured. "You're a victim. I've never heard of an unchanged victim able to use vampiric powers, though. Well, new day, new discovery."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Vianne said through gritted teeth. "Let me go, you're hurting me!"

She screamed as Corvin yanked her off the horse altogether and flung her to the ground. Then she froze as he whipped his boomerang around to touch its sharp edge to her throat.

"Who knows what other traits you inherited, eh?" he said, reaching for her lower jaw with his free hand. "Let's have a closer look at your teeth, shall we?"

Perhaps Corvin caught the look in Vianne's narrowed eyes, for at the last moment he snatched his hand back and sprang backwards, narrowly avoiding the blue shield that had materialised around her. That alone was testament to his razor instinct and skill as a warrior.

"Don't touch me," Vianne hissed as she got to her feet, rubbing the back of her head where it had whacked into the hard earth. "You don't know shit about what's going on, so don't interfere with me, or I swear I will rip that face off your skull. You're not fit to wear it."

Corvin scoffed, "I was born with it, lady. Just like my kid brother."

Vianne's eyes went wide for the second time that evening. "Your younger brother? Rydel …?"

"Outlandish getup, silver bow, perfect hair?"

Vianne nodded mutely.

"Sounds like him, all right."

"You're Rydel's brother?" she mumbled incredulously.

"His twin, actually," Corvin clarified. "It's as much my face as it is his, and I'm quite attached to it, so I'll thank you not to rip it off. So, who is it I'm having the pleasure of meeting? My would-be sister-in-law?"

Vianne's expression clouded faster than the sky during a sudden thunderstorm. "A murderer," she replied in a low, anguished voice.

"Oh come on, you mean to tell me you really did Rydel in? What did he die of, heartbreak?" Corvin asked flippantly.

Vianne's eyes narrowed, and she glared at Corvin through hot tears. "You want to know what I did to your brother?" she spat viciously. "I'll tell you. I took a knife, carved a hole into his chest and gouged his heart out of his ribcage. He was conscious till the very end, and he died in agony. That is the kind of person you're having the _pleasure_ of meeting."

Trembling with fury and pain, Vianne raised a shaking hand and held it out, palm up. "Do you see it?" she asked in a distant voice. "Do you see your brother's blood, the blood pouring from his still-beating heart, on my hands? I can. I see it, I smell it, I feel its warmth on my skin all the time. Not just on my hands, either. It's on my face, in my hair, my clothes, everywhere. If I wanted to drink blood, I could just lick my fingers, or my lips, and there would be more than enough. Someone like me, I wouldn't need to bite anyone even if I thirsted for blood. Because Rydel's blood is in abundant supply, all around me …"

She was crying, the tears coursing freely from her blank eyes. The shield around her dissipated, and her legs buckled under her. She fell, but Corvin stepped forward and caught her in his arms. Shaking her gently, he said, "Hey, hey! Get a grip on yourself, man!"

Vianne was crumbling inside. She had been so preoccupied with her own suffering of late that she had forgotten—no, she had had the impudence to forget the pain and death she had brought to others. To people who had loved her.

As she looked upon Corvin's face, all her mind's eye could see was Rydel, smiling that last bloodstained smile at her before his body, bereft of its heart, had keeled over. Rydel, one of the three men who had died for her sake, the one whom she had killed with her own hands. Rydel, her greatest sin. Rydel, the one whose blood she was steeped in up to her neck. No, she was in over her head.

"Why?" Corvin asked softly. "Why did you kill him in such a cruel way?"

"I didn't want to," Vianne murmured fervently, "I didn't want to! But he was going to die, and _she _was going to make him kill me too. It was the only way to stop him … no, to stop_ her_, and he … he told me to do it … to kill him, and save myself … and so I—"

"—and so you fulfilled his last wish," Corvin cut her off. "You said he was going to die anyway, right? Then you didn't kill him. I don't know who this 'she' is, but I hope she got what she deserved."

"How can you say that?" Vianne shrieked, thrashing madly in Corvin's grip. She was half-blind with tears. "How can you say I didn't kill him? I did just that! Didn't you hear me the first time? I took a knife, and I—"

"—I heard you," Corvin interrupted her rant again. "Now it's your turn to hear me out. I never liked the guy who shared my mother's womb. He was a fucked up religious zealot, and on top of that he was a coward to boot. No matter what he did, he did in the way that would pose the least danger to him. It didn't matter how underhanded or despicable that method was. Rydel valued his own life, maybe even more than he valued the being called 'God' that he was always going on about.

"That was the kind of guy that my brother was. Once you said that he asked you to kill him so you could live, I understood just how much you meant to him. For that Rydel to give up his life for a girl … I never thought that was possible. I guess my dumbass of a kid brother finally grew up. I don't know what he wanted to say to you or whether he got to say it, but on my part I'd like to thank you for whatever you did for him. It sounds like you made him a lot less of a bastard."

"But … I killed him …"

"Stop going on about that. You did nothing of the sort," Corvin said, his voice, which had been so rough before, strangely gentle. "Don't you understand? That idiot never had a real life. You gave him one. To be able to throw away his life for you … he had to have one first, you see? From when we were kids, he's buried himself in his religious texts and his magical studies, never letting anyone into his heart. He never cared about anyone, not me, not our parents, no one. He certainly wouldn't have died for any of us. But you … he would rather have died in agony than hurt you. So you cut his heart out, did you? If it helps, every inch of it probably belonged to you, anyway. As far as I know, Rydel has never loved another human being."

Vianne went quiet. She remembered. She remembered Rydel telling her to just cut his heart out, because it belonged to her anyway. He had said it himself.

"That's why what you did wasn't murder," Corvin concluded. "All you did was give a dying man all he could have wished for. I didn't like Rydel, but I can be certain of that. Now that he's dead, and a better man for it, I think I can finally love my little brother without feeling disgusted with myself. Thanks. You made these things possible for him, and for me."

Vianne looked up with shining eyes at the twin of the man who had loved her more than she had ever known. "Why?" she asked in a voice still thick with tears. "Why are you being so nice to me? Don't you hate me? I killed—"

"—shut up. Stop saying that word. If Rydel were here, he wouldn't want you to be using it either," Corvin said sharply. Then his voice became gentle once more as he said, "In a manner of speaking, Rydel and I have the same face, right? The same lips …"

Trailing off, he bent his head and touched his lips to Vianne's. His hands came up and wiped her tears off her face, just as Rydel had done, once. As he did so, there was the rumble of distant thunder, and a downpour began.

Corvin pulled back, let go of Vianne and got to his feet. "Consider that Rydel's farewell present from the hereafter," he told her. Then he seemed to notice that he was getting soaked in the rain. "The rain, huh? Great. It'll wash away all the blood on you. You're covered in blood not because you're guilty, but because you've chosen to wear it on your skin. Let the rain wash it away, and come out of this clean.

"Now, I can tell you've got something you need to do. Never let it be said I held up the girl whom my brother loved; go right ahead. You're full of regrets—I see them in your eyes—and I won't be the one to make you gain another one. Go."

From where she knelt in the grass, Vianne gazed up at the sky as the rain fell, washing away all the blood from the slain forest beasts. The moon was exactly half-full. It had been like this on the night she had killed—no, on the night Rydel had died. This moon had watched as she had become tainted with blood. Perhaps it was fate that it would be watching again this night, as she was cleansed of it through this chance encounter. She rose.

"Thank you," she said in a soft but steady voice as she climbed back onto the back of her waiting horse. "You cleared away a lot of the darkness in my heart. I … I wish you all the best, Corvin."

"The same to you," Corvin answered, showing her a dashing smile that reminded her so much of Rydel. "I apologise for manhandling you earlier; I was just doing my job, you know? Don't worry about your secrets … they're safe with me, unless you start biting people."

Vianne inclined her head to Rydel's brother and smiled with genuine warmth, something she had not done for a long time. Then she turned her horse around and galloped off, guided by the light of the now-bloodless moon.


	7. Daybreak

**The Legend III**

Dream Walker

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Surprise, surprise! The queen of procrastination does it again! The ending of the third arc of D and Vianne's story, it arriveth! In the form of a mega 3200-word chapter, quite a bit longer than my normal episodes. It's a little abrupt, but hell, I'm not one for draggy ends. I'm sorry to those who like long, epic final boss battles, but this is not an action fic, and Siera is more of a psychological villain than a physical one, so there isn't really a point in dragging the fight out. The ending is brisk and relatively uneventful, and the main purpose is to reveal everything about Siera and her motivations. That aside, I've noticed a rather disturbing trend in my three VHD fics so far. Once Bitten was 11 chapters long sans author's note, Tainted Angel was 9, and now Dream Walker will end with the 7th. It seems like my fics are becoming 2 chapters shorter every round. Not to worry! That's just because this particular story is just a small piece of side plot, a window to some of the things that Vianne has to endure in her role. It's also mostly Vianne-centric, with D mostly taking a passive back seat. We can't have the smexy dhampir running around cutting down enemies for seven whole stories, can we? Enough desperate explaining, I'll leave you to read the end of this arc, and judge for yourselves whether it sucks ass or not. At this point, I'd like to thank all of you for following this tedious little series so far. I'll start work on the fourth instalment, which will be titled Siren Song, as soon as my next wave of inspiration comes. Hey, quality over speed. Please sit back and enjoy the rest of what Dream Walker has to offer, and look out for the next part in the series!_

_## As a side note, for those among you, dear readers, who like the manga series Inuyasha, while waiting for Siren Song to spawn on the pages of please support my new Inuyasha fic, Blood Memory! I had this epic brainwave for that particular fic, and I got six chapters up in the space of two days. What? Why don't I ever do stuff like that for the VHD fics? Uh. Blame the brain. Okay, no more advertising. On to Daybreak!  
_

**Chapter 7: Daybreak**

Siera smiled with satisfaction as she accompanied D down the street. The moment they had arrived in town two days ago, while D had been seeing to the needs of his horse, she had gone to seek out the mayor. She had promised the dirty old man continued sexual favours as long as he made excuses to delay D's payment. She needed more time; D's defences were so close from weakening. As it was, D was still in town for her to cling to at her leisure.

The dusky veil of evening had just descended upon the sky; there was still a little daylight, but the moon was already up. The sky was quite beautiful like that, alight with a mysterious dim crimson glow, with the rising moon and the setting sun facing off on opposite horizons.

They stopped outside the local inn where Siera had put herself up after lying that her family had refused to take her in. In truth, the silly, easily-awed humans would only get in her way.

D left her outside the door and turned to walk away—he had his lodgings somewhere else. "D, wait!" she called out. Her next words were carefully calculated. "Won't you come in and share a meal with me? It'll be my treat, for making you accompany me around like this. I feel so bad … but I still don't feel quite safe."

After a suitable pause, she let out a small gasp and brought her hands up to her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry … I forgot … you don't eat … like the rest of us …"

"It's fine," D said impassively. "Go inside." Without further comment, he left.

Siera wore a faintly satisfied smile on her face as she entered the inn. When she caught sight of the person coming down the stairs in the lobby, however, the smirk vanished and her blood ran cold.

This inn was rather special. The lobby had a skylight, and the moon was clearly visible through the glass. The soft fading light of dusk dyed the entire room crimson, including a face that Siera had never expected to see again. Vianne's face.

What truly sent chills down Siera's spine was the fact that Vianne was walking confidently down the stairs without groping at the handrails. She had a curious gaze fixed on the queue of travellers at the counter, almost as if she could see them. Then her gaze shifted, and she made eye contact with Siera. It was then that the redhead knew. Vianne could see.

Vianne stopped on the fifth step of the stairway, forcing Siera, who was a short distance away, to look up at her. "Finding you seems to have turned out a lot easier than I'd expected," she remarked. "Where's D? I hesitate to think that you'd go to such lengths just to get rid of me only to let him leave you in a place like this."

Siera smiled sweetly. "It's nice to see that your eyes have miraculously regained their sight. However, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Vianne's eyes narrowed. "Don't bother faking it, Siera. Now that I can see your face, I know for sure. You were the one tormenting me in my dreams. You have a great deal of explaining to do."

An ugly smile split Siera's beautiful face. "Oh? I'd like to see you make me."

With that, she turned and hightailed it out of the door. Muttering some choice profanities, Vianne jumped the full five steps to the ground floor and dashed out after her enemy.

* * *

Vianne swore as she turned the corner that she thought she had seen Siera disappear around, but it was nothing but an empty dead end. Siera had been leading her on a wild goose chase through the town's back alleys for almost two hours. Having lived in this town for all her life, Siera had an obvious advantage in such games.

Utterly spent, Vianne took a moment to catch her breath; she was not overly worried about losing Siera's trail—the redhead was clearly toying with her, shaking her off in the maze of alleys before appearing to her again a while later. As such, she thought herself well able to afford the luxury of a few seconds' rest.

That was her fatal mistake. Without warning, what felt like the butt end of a dagger slammed, hard, into the back of Vianne's neck. Instantly knocked out by the sudden blow, she crumpled into a heap on the cold gravel.

* * *

She was back. She was here, in this very town, for reasons D could not yet fathom. He had been able to sense Vianne's approach for the past three days. She had gone further away when they had first parted, but she had soon changed direction.

Why was Vianne here? Why, after she had declared her unwillingness to be near him so clearly? For a rare moment, D struggled with indecision. It was only a moment, and it passed quickly. What she did was no longer any of his business, and the best course of action would be to ignore her presence.

D would have done just that, if his awareness of her had not told him that she was extremely close. There was nothing in this part of town but industrial buildings and dodgy back alleys. What was she doing in a place like this? And then, besides her, there was someone else nearby too.

Casually, without any appearance of haste, D exited the disused warehouse that he had taken up temporary residence in.

* * *

Vianne came to, in the very same alleyway in which she had been jumped, with a horrendous ache in her neck. She sat up, rubbing the base of her skull where she had been hit, and the first thing she noticed was that her bracelet was missing.

"Missing something, my dear?" Siera asked in a cloying voice.

Vianne whirled around, and found the only exit from the alley blocked by Siera. In her right hand the redhead held a wickedly sharp knife. Around the index finger of her left hand dangled the Moon Bracelet.

"Curse your skinny wrists!" Siera said with mock indignation, pouting prettily. "I can't get this little trinket to fit me. Since when do they make bracelets so small? And what's that look for? Are you surprised I could get it off you? Like you said, I was in your head. Why wouldn't I know how to do what you know how to do?"

"My wrists aren't skinny," Vianne shot back, not passing up on the chance to insult the woman she had come to hate. "Yours are fat."

"Trust you to still want to hurl abuse at me at this juncture," Siera said disapprovingly, waggling a finger at the younger woman. "Your life is very much in peril."

Vianne backed slowly away from Siera, keeping her eyes on the knife in the other woman's hand. She knew that she was done for unless someone found them in this quiet part of the town in the middle of the night. There was nothing in the alley behind her except a dead end. Just for a split second, she glanced up at the brightening sky. The third night was coming to an end. In just minutes, she would be blind again as the moon gave way to the sun.

Siera giggled as she advanced on Vianne, twirling the Moon Bracelet around her finger. "So, how does it feel to be bereft of your precious bracelet again?" she taunted. "This is just like in your dreams, don't you think? So fragile, so helpless, so easy to hurt ... that was what drew me to do all those things to you, you know. That man in your dreams ... he was a man, all right, but his mind was mine. What can I say? Your inability to protect yourself was ... decidedly arousing. I wanted to hurt you, to extract every drop of exquisite pain and suffering possible from your mind; the very thought of it excited my blood."

Vianne felt her skin crawl as she moved steadily back. She knew that her back was going to hit solid wall soon. But she kept retreating, determined to keep herself away from this frightening woman for as long as possible.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked when she felt rough brick wall against her back. Tears of panic formed in her eyes. "What do you want?"

Siera laughed huskily as she closed the gap between Vianne and herself. Vianne desperately pressed back against the wall, but nonetheless found herself inches away from her enemy.

"What do you mean?" Siera said almost mischievously as she touched the cold blade of her knife to Vianne's cheek. "If you mean yourself, I merely wished to exploit your pitiable weakness for my own amusement and pleasure, at your expense of course. Actually, at first I was going to get to him through you. But I took a peek in his mind, and realised that I didn't need the time that I could buy from using you after all. So I had to drive you away from him. And why was that? Because I know how you feel for him, Vianne. Better than you yourself know it. You'd just get in the way of what I hope to achieve with him. And those feelings ... they made me oh, so jealous, see."

Holding the knife steadily against Vianne's throat, Siera leaned in and forcefully mashed her lips against the younger woman's. Vianne writhed in disgust, trying to free herself from Siera's bruising kiss. She felt the knife cut into her skin and blood trickle down her neck, but she did not care. Her revulsion at Siera's perverse attraction to her was too great to bear.

There was a cry of shock, and Siera reared back. Blood oozed from a wound on her lip. Vianne turned her head and spat out the blood in her mouth. "Fuck off, you faggot," she hissed, "and go find a nice long tree branch if you're so desperate."

Instead of anger at being insulted, Siera displayed only mirth as she threw her head back and laughed heartily. "Grew some backbone, did you?" she giggled. "What a turn-off. And I was just getting warm, too."

"I didn't have to know that," Vianne retorted, letting her disgust show plainly. "What do you want with D?"

"Ooh, forever looking out for others first, you selfless angel," Siera crooned. "Obviously I'm going to take over his mind through his dreams. His mind is strong, yes, but so full of carefully suppressed pain and darkness that I can use! As for after I gain control over him ... well, first of all I'd get him in bed with me, before I actually take over his body. I mean, he makes me damp down there just by standing there and looking like he does. I imagine it would be quite an experience ..."

"You need to get yourself a boyfriend, you desperate whore," Vianne snapped. "Going to all this trouble just to get laid? Why don't you just get a job in a brothel? Or go search for a stick, like I said?"

This time, Siera backhanded her across the face, snarling, "I've had enough of your lip, you little bitch. If you really must know, I want his body. That man can cut a laser beam in two. You won't believe how thrilled I was when he was the one who rescued me from the vampire. Whom I was actually targeting initially. But then I had the legendary hunter D in my grasp!"

Vianne felt her blood run cold. "What do you mean, you want his body?" she asked, not sure if she even wanted to know.

Siera threw her head back and laughed, her copper curls bouncing as if sharing her mirth. "Haven't you figured it out by now, you silly girl? I'm not human, and this isn't the body I was born with. I'm a parasite morph. Or rather, the consciousness of one inside a human shell. Have you heard of my kind?"

A parasite morph. Vianne had only heard the horror stories, but those alone were more than enough. Creatures by that name were born as vaguely humanoid lumps of an unknown substance. Once fully grown, the substance that made up their bodies would begin to decay, and they would have to find a host body, or die. They were gifted with the ability to enter and manipulate dreams -- an ability known commonly as dream-walking. Depending on the strength of the particular morph, its influence could extend up to a few miles from the physical body. Using this ability, a parasite morph could weaken any sentient being's mind until it could transfer its consciousness into the human's body and take over completely.

People who were prey to parasite morphs would often succumb to insanity, and then appear to recover completely all of a sudden, when in fact it was because they were no longer themselves. The body would continue to age normally, and if it died, so would the morph. For convenience, most parasite morphs use their hosts' memories to pretend to be their hosts, and then take over a younger member of the family when their host bodies grew too old or sickly. As such, parasite morphs often existed as almost undetectable inherited afflictions, and could thus live exceedingly long lives. They had been discovered when one of them had slipped up and behaved like a previous host instead of the current one.

Realising that she had almost been victim to such a creature, and then D through her, sent chills down Vianne's spine. She had never been more thankful for the Moon Bracelet. Which, she realised with a pang, was dangling off Siera's finger.

"I'm sick of transferring myself from mortal body to mortal body, having no purpose other than to survive," Siera told Vianne. "I want something more out of this endless, sickening existence. I want to bend the world to my will! Wouldn't that be thrilling? To do that I need a body with exceptional power. So I decided to try for one of the vampire Nobles. But now I have something so much better within reach! The body of the one who can kill Nobles! I won't give it up, wench. I will have it for mine, and you can do nothing to stop me! Too bad, darling. Your loss."

With that, she, or rather it, raised the knife above its head, the razor-sharp blade poised to stab down into Vianne's chest. Vianne's eyes followed the blade as it was brought high into the air. As the weapon rose, so did the sun. The first rays of the sun shone from above the nearby buildings. The third night was over. The last thing Vianne saw was the knife framed in a halo of morning sunlight, its blade glinting with lethal promise. And then everything was just plain black again. Perhaps it was just as well that she did not have to watch her own execution.

She had lost.

Suddenly, a familiar voice broke through the darkness. The sound of it nearly stopped her heart. She had thought she would never hear it again.

It said, in the very same calm, quiet tone as always, "Put the knife down."

Vianne heard a gasp. There was a scuffling sound from below as the parasite morph whipped around, its shoes scraping against the rough gravel. "D ..." it stammered, its voice already shaking. "This isn't what it looks like ... I can explain ... she came back, and she --"

Perhaps Siera realised that nothing she said or did would change anything now, because Vianne could feel the raw fear emanating from her. That same fear could be heard clearly in her voice as she murmured, "How much did you hear? How much did you hear ...?"

Emboldened by D's presence, Vianne whispered, echoing Siera's words, "Too bad, darling. _Your_ loss."

"You slut! How dare you!" Siera screeched, wheeling back around. "I'll kill you!"

There was the sickening sound of flesh being rent by a blade, and Vianne felt warm blood splatter her face. She slid to the ground, convinced that it was her own blood. But then she heard the thud of another body hitting the ground right in front of her, along with two chinks. One of the unused knife falling to the floor, and the other of her bracelet landing on the gravel. And then there was the soft, drawn-out rasp of a sword being sheathed.

She felt her loosely curled fist being eased open, and then the cool touch of her bracelet as it was placed into her palm. Without speaking, she put the accessory back on and stood. Her legs were still shaky from the fright she had gotten.

"Why did you come back?" D asked, surprising her. She had thought he would just walk away and leave her to find her own way out.

"I wanted to get back at her. It. Whatever," she answered in a flat voice. "You don't know what it did to me when it controlled my dreams, and I'm not about to tell you, so take my word for it that it was bad."

"Is that all?" he pressed on. Vianne frowned. It was almost as if he needed to know.

"I wanted to prove to you that I'm not a raving lunatic," she said. That made almost the whole truth, now. "I have a problem with people thinking of me as a madwoman when I'm not."

D seemed satisfied with that answer, because the next thing he said was, "I'll walk you to the coach stand."

Vianne shook her head, although she was not sure if he was even looking at her. "I'm not leaving again," she said. It was so hard to find the right words to express her intentions explicitly, so she waited for his response.

There was a long moment of silence. Then D said, "You've forgiven me, then?"

Vianne felt something catch in her throat. "Everything was just part of her ploy to drive me off and get at you, wasn't it? It's stupid to continue falling for it when the monster is already dead. So yeah, I forgive you. Maybe there was never anything to forgive."

And so she left with him. As they walked back towards the more populated part of town, D suddenly said, "Thank you."

It was as if he knew the whole truth, even the last little reason that Vianne had withheld from him. It was as if he understood that she had returned not only to take revenge and to clear her own name, but to save him from Siera's mysterious powers as well. Yet how would he know? She had betrayed nothing, not even in her conversation with Siera in that alley.

_I guess there's no way to know_, Vianne thought. So all she said was, "You're welcome."


End file.
